Cheese
by Melpomene melancholica
Summary: Eugene should know better than try to top an 18-year tradition.


Disclaimer: Tangled is the property of Disnye, etc. Borrowing for entertainment and safe form of escapism. No monetary gains whatsoever. (Precious minutes of productivity in the last hour of work lost.)

**Cheese**

Being that man cannot leave on bread alone, even the healthiest, sanest people need a little bit of cheese sometimes. Now, gourmands can probably tell you that a little bit of fungus on your cheese makes the world of a difference. I'm more of your basic, boil-roast-and-fry sort of guy, so I'll tell you what it is: rotten.

Ah, but I digress.

Right now, I don't really have time to go off into philosophical tangents. You see that giant purple balloon with a golden sunburst design on its middle and a little woven basket underneath? Trust me, it's much bigger up close and not nearly as solid as it looks. It's also carrying my-how did that pompous letters tutor say it?-my _raison d'etre_.

Exactly a year and a day ago, I wouldn't have been caught saying such a cheesy line (see, now my opening line makes sense, doesn't it?), but the most wonderful thing about being alive is that it takes a moment, a single defining one, to find a reason why. As much as I'm really hating the stitches pricking my ribs, the proverbial thorns rubbing up and down my throat, and the invisible bag that's been keeping me from getting enough air, they're reminding me that as long as I'm breathing and moving, I can still get to that giant lantern. I can do something before it all ends with a splat.

Of course, I'm catching up with the darn thing! Do you think I'd waste time waxing about how grateful I am to be alive after nearly slipping on that loose shingle otherwise?

"Eugene!" calls out the brunette in the gondola. She's close enough that I think I can make out the light dash of freckles across her nose.

Or maybe I'm just hallucinating from lack of air. I can't be that close to her yet. Evidently, looking like I'm in shape isn't the same as actually being it.

"Rapunzel!" I manage to yell back, now more confident that my voice will carry over to her. "Throw down the rope!"

"What?"

"Throw it down! Over the side!"

She throws it down with some effort. The ran-away dirigible balloon has slowed down enough that it drags a little closer to the rooftops and the distance I've been gaining on it is appreciatively more noticeable. Unfortunately, the "it" she threw down is not the right it.

"UGH!"

Missed her by inches! The sudden decrease in weight created by the bag of sand she had tossed overboard suddenly jerks the balloon upward, an ill-timed wisp of wind carrying her over to hover over the next building.

"I shouldn't have done that!" the princess says, on realizing her mistake. "I'm so sorry, Eugene!"

"Don't be sorry, Goldie," I assure her with a grimace. "Listen. There should be an oar-like thing you can use to steer the ship…"

The gondola scrapes its bottom on a high chimney, right then. It also crushes one of the little wing-like structures on its hull.

"Never mind," I amend, preparing a pretty long jump to the next house. "I'm coming."

Did I mention this is all my fault in a roundabout way? See, my girlfriend spent the first eighteen years of her life locked up in a tower. She has just finished living a whole year outside of it-today's the anniversary of two important events, as she'd say, the day she was born and the day she started living. Between her parents being king and queen, and there already being a stupendous tribute to her birth in form of hundreds of floating lanterns released on the evening of her birthday, you can't blame any doting beau from trying to top that, right?

See, when Blondie and I showed up in front of the castle, the people that matter were pretty quick in realizing that we intended to stay where the other was. Things did get out of hand the first few months-I was roped in on the lessons and conduct coaching and getting introduced to other nobles. The king thankfully decided I needed to start with smaller steps, and he agreed when I told him of my decision to take on an apprenticeship with a local metal smith, Jacque Armour.

Hey, if I survive crafting shiny stuff and not taking off with any of them, it should count for something, right?

I still have quite a bit of charm left from my Flynn Rider days, and now that I'm mostly considered reputable and not as sticky-fingered, most people are inclined to like me. When I'm not stuck minding the forges, I usually gather good business for the store-at first people came to gawk at this former thief-turned rescuer-and-likely-future-prince person. And then, to my own surprise, the customers continued coming because my master's wares are quite fine enough to sell without my handsome face. Within a short few months, they all start treating me like a regular fixture, just as they do any other trainees of craftsmen or tradesmen, even though I am a bit older than average.

Long story short, my mentor kinda likes me, so he showed me what he's been working on during his spare time, a new gizmo he created, that he based on a model he saw in a fair a few kingdoms away. Of course, he adores the new-found princess like any other citizen of the Kingdom, so it didn't take me long to talk him into letting me borrow it. As should be obvious by now, there is only so much testing one can do without being caught.

See, some idiot discovered where I hid the dirigible in the castle grounds, took it for a ride, put it back, and didn't tie it properly. Blondie must have seen it (who wouldn't have?), decides to go for a ride or at least sit on the dainty-looking gondola, and the balloon got loose.

This is the only instance I can truly say I am grateful at finding the frog's tongue lodged in my ear canal at the crack of dawn.

"Almost there!" I pant, as I reach for the excess bit of rope dangling a feet above my head. I can hear the clatter of armor as the guards Pascal had summoned on my behalf came running after us, far down in the city streets.

I catch it and pull myself up. The gondola shifts and threatens to overturn. The birthday girl is swift on her mind as well as her feet and so had braced herself against the opposite wall of the tiny pit, balancing the weight out. After a bit of squirming around, I had my arms around her in relief.

She kisses me back but only briefly.

"Eugene," she says earnestly and points at the gas lamp, the flames billowing at its max. Even with my added weight, the resulting heat has propelled the balloon up higher, where the wind catches it and carries it over the houses and out into the harbor.

It's only a matter of time before the gas lamp runs out of gas, before our balloon runs out of hot air, and before the space between us and the unforgiving earth runs out.

"I think it's time for a quick exit," I say, hastily going for a one of the tied bags at the bottom of the wooden tub they were in. "Here."

I hands her what looks like a mass of silk.

"Eugene, I doubt this is a good time to try on a new dress-!"

"It's another of Old Man Jack's creations," I explain. "It'll slow down our fall."

"Our what?" Rapunzel squeaks.

"We're going to have to jump." I come off more nonchalant than I felt. You have to give credit to Eugene Fitzherbert for that moment of suave under pressure. "We have to before we're carried too far over the sea."

"Oh. Okay," the petite girl says, as I quickly fasten the yards of silk about the two of us. "It'll billow out and let us float down like a leaf. I'm not even going to ask if you've done this before."

"Good," I grunt, securing the last bits before preparing to jump. "It didn't quite turn out as I wanted but… happy birthday?"

"Thank you, Eugene, but maybe we should save it for-!"

###

We survive, just so you know. The only downer is that the whole debacle kinda ended my apprenticeship with Old Man Jack. The king, queen, and several members of the court decided that the kingdom has placed too much investment on this prince-consort-to-be, and there are other fields he can explore without getting too creative or too close to dying-and dragging the princess with him.

I am now apprenticed to the royal accountant and am deeply suffering.

Ever the optimist, Blondie points out that, if anything, I'll have the immunity she doesn't against boring meetings that drag on and on for hours. And since, as we were trudging up the beach, soaking wet with several bolts of ruined silk fluttering behind us, she had called her 19th the best birthday ever after yet another near-death experience, I've decided to devote those hours of mind-driveling boredom into plotting up ways to trump it on her 20th.

Oh, and mini-trivia: I've taken a liking to gorgonzola.

~2152 010511

Thus, I succumb to my doom. Heaven preserve me. T_T And the thing, it just ran away from me. Hu hu hu. I think it's evident I pulled this one out of a few Google searches and from my, you know.

written for LJ comm 31_days theme, "Jan 5: Girl meets airship. Girl loses airship."


End file.
